The Dante Conspiracy (21 page)

With the departure of Hoover, the requirements had lessened,
but the Resident Agencies still reported to the Field Offices, and the Field
Offices to Headquarters in Washington D.C. That was why almost the last thing
Gloria
Gray
did before she left the office that
evening was to email encrypted copies of all the notes and reports she had
typed that day to the Salt Lake City Field Office.

She should really have waited until Kaufmann had seen her
transcription of the Beaver Creek incident and approved it but, she reasoned,
if there were any errors in it she could always send a revised copy the next
day.

FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover
Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The email report from the Helena Resident Agency was
downloaded onto the Salt Lake City Field Office email computer at five fifty
that evening and automatically decrypted. The Duty Special Agent read it, noted
its points of interest, and included it in the Field Office bulk email to the
Hoover Building that evening, where it arrived at eight ten.

All email messages received at FBI Headquarters are
automatically scanned by a program designed to search for keywords in the text,
and to flag all messages which contain such words. Two of the words contained
in the text from Helena matched those in the program’s look-up table, and by
nine the message had been printed as hard copy and automatically allocated a
Top Secret classification. By eleven fifteen the Helena email message had been
inserted in a red folder and was in the hands of the Director of the Criminal
Investigative Division, who had been called-in by the duty staff.

At eleven forty-five, having checked the original message
text and noted the instructions contained in a file he hadn’t seen before, but
which bore a classification of Top Secret/Omega, he reached for the telephone.

When he received the call, the Director of the FBI was in
bed, and with his wife, which would have surprised some people who knew him
well.

‘Donahue,’ he said.

‘Please go secure, sir.’

The Director grunted with annoyance but pressed the button
on his bedside telephone base unit.

‘What is it?’

‘William McGrath, sir. Sorry to call you so late, but we
have a possible Omega Incident.’

‘Oh, shit.’

George Donahue had only headed the Bureau for a matter of
months, and few people, even McGrath who worked with him on a daily basis, knew
him well. But he usually displayed mild manners and even temperament, and his
expletive surprised McGrath.

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘Never mind.’

Donahue glanced at his bedside clock. ‘Do nothing about it
until I get to the Bureau,’ he said. ‘Send a car for me immediately. I’ll see
you in my office in about half an hour. Get me the original text of whatever
message or messages you’ve received, plus whatever data you’ve got on any
personnel involved in the incident – that’s Bureau, law enforcement and
civilian.

‘Lastly, get a file called Omega Procedures from the Central
Registry, on my authority, but don’t, under any circumstances, unseal that
file.’